How can I make myself like soy and tofu?

Question

I want to eat healthier, but I just can not make myself like the taste of tofu and soy (soy milk, etc). Is there anything that I can do to acquire a taste for it?

Answer 1

Soy: I know there are soy protein bars you can get out there, and some of them look like chocolate candy bars, so I'm guessing they probly taste okay.

Tofu: SUPER-EASY!! I'm like addicted to this stuff. Here's one super easy dish I make, and it doesn't even take cooking:
1. Buy Soft Tofu, and put it into a large bowl.
2. Slice into 3/4" inch cubes.
3. Sprinkle pepper and add equal amounts of light soy sauce and sesame oil. I just add enough so that it's evenly coated.
4. Toss gently with two spoons until coated.
~Eat with rice, or rice porridge.

Soft tofu is also really good in soups, or fried. You can eat it with pretty much anything. You can even add it plain to salads.

If you buy medium-sized and cube-shaped fried tofu, from an Asian supermarket, you can stuff them with ground meat (marinate the meat in soy sauce, pepper, and anything else you like) and then saute until cooked.

Spicy tofu is also really really good. I think that's what someone is talking about when they say "ma po tofu". ;)

The possibilities are endless!!

Happy cooking :)

Answer 2

Hi. Try some Chinese recipes for tofu. Tofu in China tastes delicious: people here usually add a lot of spices to their tofu dishes: chili peppers, ginger etc. My favorites are ma po tofu or ma la tofu. No idea what the English names are. No advice about soy milk, sorry.

Answer 3

tofu has little flavor and not much texture, but it absorbs the flavors it's cooked in so it's very versatile. To start out, add a little crubled tofu to refried beans for added protien and texture, that'll disguise it. Another trick is getting firm tofu and freezing it. This gives it a chewier texture. Saute it in your favorite marinade and serve with veggies over rice. Yum! As for soymilk.. it comes in many flavors and brands with different levels of creaminess. If you drink coffee try getting soy lattes instead of regular. From there maybe try the vanilla or choclate flavored soy milks. Or try almond milks for a richer flavor.

Answer 4

Hello. Many Americans do not like tofu (to my ears it should be "dau-fu" which is old Chinese for "bean meat") because they don't know what to do with it.

Ironically, most of the Asians I know will not eat beans, because only a very few beans are eaten in the Far East, and most of them only in processed form--like daufu.

Here is a good motivator for you: soy beans naturally have a bit of calcium in them, but the calcium salts used to curdle it for daufu make it very rich in calcium. That caclium can help keep you from getting osteoporosis, or at least slow it down. It probably has some B-vitamins left (the raw beans do) and these are good too.

If there are authentic Chinese restaurants in the city where you live, you might try some common dishes that use the stuff. A very typical one is "hot and sour soup", which usually has cubes or broken up chunks of soft daufu. Ask the waiter or waitress.

Another fairly common dish which my Chinese wife loves, but might be a little odd to you, is "ma bo daufu" ("the pockmarked mother's daufu"), which reputedly was served by an elderly woman with smallpox scars (or some people think that the pox refers to the untidy appearance of the dish!!) somewhere in Sze-chuan.

If you can find a Chinese vegetarian restaurant (they are surprisingly common in cities with large Chinese populations; typically the proprietors are Buddhist), you are apt to find lots of delicious dishes to try that contain a little or a lot, in a lot of different forms.

By the way, it comes in many different consistencies. Some are extremely soft and silky like soft custard (and some of these are in fact eaten sweetened as a dessert!), some are the medium consistency you are probably familiar with, and some are quite dense, chewey, and almost "meaty".

After you see how it is used in traditional Chinese dishes, you might get some ideas of your own, or you might try duplicating the recipes you like.

I can think of all sorts of uses for it. For example, I sometimes blend it with fruit pulp and agar-agar to make gelatin-like deserts (actually, a little better, because agar-agar does not melt on hot days, and the real fruit pulp makes a richer and more natural dessert). You cut the cubes of chilled agar-agar/daufu/fruit pulp and mix with fresh chilled fruit, topped off with whipped cream, to make an old-fashioned parfait.

Some related products are "daufu skin", which is the rubbery, meaty stuff that forms on the edges of the bean curd, soy milk which is what you get before you pour nigari into it, and various fried daufu products. Chinese soy milk has a more natural "beany" taste than its American or Japanese counterparts, and it is traditionally flavored with raw Chinese sugar, although in some cities you might find it in other flavors. Melon-flavored soy milk is popular!

Soy powder by the way is nearly flavorless. If it DOES have a flavor or odor--there is a good chance that it is rancid! That's why it is almost always sold de-fatted, so that it DOESN'T go rancid. Extremely high concentration of protein and it is fairly cheap as whole protein goes (if you shop around for a reasonable source for it--I buy mine from Trader Joe's which has it in reasonably priced one pound cans). If the protein content is what you are after it is extremely easy to use: just mix it in with pancake batter (you will never taste it), muffin batter, quick bread batter, bread dough (if you have a bread machine), waffle batter, etc. Approx 1 tsp per cup of flour should do it. It nicely compliments the protein in the wheat, which would otherwise be low in lysine.

Answer 5

Well skim or 1% milk (unless you are lactose intolerant) are better for you then soy milk. Just compare the nutritional labels.

Try breaking up the tofu instead of eating it in slabs and add lots of strong flavors to it. It's good in stir fries with soy sauce or teriyaki.

Answer 6

Tofu....Fry it is bacon grease...add some salt...cheese....with some pork rinds on the side. That ought to do it.

The best think for soy milk is to take a quart and take a big swig...then the concoction in the first part of the answer has got to taste better than that!

Answer 7

tofu takes on other flavors easily so spice it up with other morwe powerful flavors. soy milk has a weird taste to it -- try rice milk or almond milk.

also beware -- women are cautioned against eating too much soy because of hormone problems

Answer 8

You don't have to eat soy to be healthy. I like it, but I've been a vegetarian for 16 years. Just eat less fat and processed foods. If you really want to try soy, get some veat products. They're good, but hard to find. Also, you can try edamame, soy chips, or soy nuts.

Answer 9

I'm a vegetarian who hates tofu. Try Lightlife products. They make a veggie/soy pepperoni that is very good and many other items.

Answer 10

drink way 2 hot hot tea b4 each bite- u might burn your tongue but u won't taste a thing- tofu & soy r NASTY. There r other ways 2 eat healthy